Remembering what Mama always said... can keep you from going wrong with your online business.

The following is an ongoing compiled list:

1. "Always date a girl with a good reputation." When buying a previously owned URL make sure it has a good reputation, as years of cached links may show up on the search engine that you don't recognize.

4. "There's always more fish in the sea." Watch your ROI, if your efforts to get a prospective client's attention on social media are falling on deaf ears ... or blind eyes, move on. Social media can take up a lot of your time and money - a big picture strategy should go hand-in-hand with focus.

5. "Don't move too fast; take your time to get to know each other." A sudden influx of SEO activity can actually hurt your search engine rankings in the long run. Also, being hasty can allow mistakes to go unnoticed. It is more important to take your time to be accurate and strategic where your website's information and links will be placed.

6. "It's not nice to lead people on." Make sure the links that you post with your content on social media or websites go directly to the page with the information you are talking about. You will lose people along the way in a string of links.

7. "If you like it, put a ring on it." When liking an article by a higher profile company or individual, make sure you comment with something compelling that will result in views to come back around to your website or social media page.

8. "Beauty is skin deep." Your website may be attractive and innovative, but if it is filled with shallow content, grammatical errors and is hard to navigate, the viewer will lose interest and so will the search engines.

9. "Stay away from Lover's Lane." Don't park your website's URL while you are building your website. Sure, you may make a few bucks, but you have no control of what is going to be linked to your parked domain by the registrar. You may have cached links and content that can harm the brand image you are trying to portray once you go live.

OK, I am fired up. I got a call this morning from a Seattle, WA phone number [206-496-0928] that claimed I was getting a message from Google Places because my listing had not been verified. Knowing that I had years ago, - red flag #1 - I still accepted the call as my curiosity was peaked. - red flag #2 - was the fact that I know Google Places had been replaced by GoogIe + Local on May 30th this year. I was then forwarded to a woman who told me the same thing, but when she told me because my listing wasn't verified I could not be found on Google, I knew immediately what this was. She pretended to give me the wrong name for my business; I said "no that's not it." The rest of the conversation went like this:

"This is Rebecca LeClaire, right?"me - "Yup!" I said, feeling the blood boiling for all my clients that have been scammed."Is your business MC Design & Services, LLC?"me - "Yup.""Is your phone number 616-881-3753?"me - "Yup.""You are very hard to find."- is there something about that that sounds funny to you? If I was hard to find how did she know all the information about my business with just my name? red flag #3 - me (ready to have a little fun) - "You're not Google are you?""No, Google wouldn't call you, we didn't say that, but you are very hard to find and..."me - "you said you were Google when you called me, your being dishonest, something about how I know a thing or two about SEO, rant rant rant"

still going on....."you can't be found"...that's all that's in my scriptme - hung up

I checked how my google rankings were doing while on the phone by making sure I was logged off of Google and picking random cities around the United States and Canada to set my location as.Guess, what? I can be found. :)Why would I log off and change my location on Google? Because Google tracks all your searches and tries to bring up what you are most likely interested in and also brings the results for products and services that are closest to your location. That is why you should never trust the ranking results over the phone or in an email that an "SEO expert" tells you. They could be in California and you could be in New York.

When I hung up I looked over at my four daughters, who are home from summer vacation and were all sitting on the couch, their mouths hung open with that 'deer in the headlights' look at the realization that their mom who expects them always to be polite and respectful just yelled at someone on the phone. Making me feel a little guilty they asked me if it was the poor lady's fault that she was making that phone call for her boss. I told them about all the people that have called me that have lost a lot of money to companies like that, that I was being told lies over and over again, and that the lady I was talking to needed to know she was working for a dishonest company if she didn't know she was lying.OK, so maybe I still feel a little bad...so scammers I will try not to raise my voice next time, I will just hang up...and I advise you do too!

At MC Design & Services, LLC we will be honest with you about your search engine ranking. We will even tell you when you have reached a point that you may want to lower your monthly budget on SEO.Contact Us for a truthful consultation.

So my 7 year old is in gymnastics, as we have seen an inate ability in her since she was balancing on over-turned boxes before she was 2. We were estatic when our local community gymnastic program commisioned a serious gymnastics gymnasium and instructors this year. It was so exciting to see her on a real balance beam and bars, but we could see it was finally challenging for her. And then it came, the letter about a bars clinic for an hour at an outrageous price. And I struggled with the guilt of not sending her because of the price. Because after all she is going to be in the olympics someday and we can't have her being embarrassed because she fell off the bars because she didn't get the early intervention she so desperately needed! What is so disturbing as a parent is that you hear these conversations in your head and you know how ridiculous it is and yet you still pay the money! Admit it, how many presents have you bought so far for the little kids in your life because of the commercials showing children running to the Christmas tree burgening with gifts? Now all you and I need to do is figure out what we can sell with guilt being the motivator. How about create a holiday where people are supposed to say I love you, even though we are supposed to say it every day, and then sell pre-made messages so people don't even have to say it! Oh yeah, that one's already taken....

I have very low blood pressure, so low that at a doctor's apt. a couple of weeks ago the nurse could not find my pulse. But, nothing gets my blood pressure to the "in danger of having a heart attack" level than slow drivers! This week, three times as I passed the "eldural parrallel" (you know, every area has one, where young meets old, where rural meets ruraler) I got stuck behind some yahoo who apparently had nowhere to go and made me late!, to VBS. Now, I can't get too upset on the way to drop my kids off at VBS (at a church in the boondocks) because that would kind of ruin the whole reason for sending them, but when it happens again on the way back! Well, my kids can get saved again tomorrow. (I'm sorry I know that's not how it works, was highly inappropriate and very flippant) But, as I was explaining to my kids that Mama is not mad, she's just really frustrated and the person in front of her can't hear her - it struck me, it is the slow driver that is rude and inconsiderate. They may not have anywhere to go, but the people behind them do, and have planned their trip by how quickly they would get there by the speed limit, or some may count on 10, maybe 20 over the speed limit - I'm not naming names, I'm just throwing it out there. Maybe I feel this way because I'm one of those lead-footed-impatient-Berg people, but, come on there need to be far more tickets for driving slow!